A plan to see the Oceania win Olympic weightlifting medals is being put together, and a Samoan weightlifter could hold the key.
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This was discussed at an Oceania Elite Coaching Seminar held Saturday last week, which was also put together to identify one or two athletes who can be helped to win gold medals.
The General Secretary of the Oceania Weightlifting Federation, Paul Coffa, said their main focus is the Olympics in 2020.
“I need to ask why we are not winning medals at the Olympics nor are we doing well at the Commonwealth Games and we are going to do well in the Gold Coast, we won four gold medals in India in 2010 [and] four medals in the region in 2014.
“We think that we are going to double the figure to eight gold medals in the Gold Coast and really dominating the Commonwealth but that’s not enough.
“The Olympics is the one.
“The only medals we won from the Olympics [in Oceania] was...the gold medal in 1984 and silver medal in 1994, Australia won the silver medals in 1996 and that was the end of it.”
“We need to set up a plan on where we can achieve a gold medal and we should also identify one or two athletes to assist them on this. “One of these athletes is Mary Opeloge,” he said. “Samoa was very unlucky to miss out on a gold medal at the Beijing Olympics [due to] Ele Opeloge coming fourth and it’s too late for her now because there’s not much chance for her to get into the top three, but Mary is the one.
“She is the best person for us to win a medal at the games and we’ve got to do everything possible to make sure she gets there.
“There are other lifters but Mary Opeloge is our number one priority because she is just world class, and it’s a pity that she didn’t compete in the world championship in Houston due to the stupidity of visa requirements.
“[But] today we have to be realistic and she is on par if not better than Dika Toua from Papua New Guinea, and those are the superstars in women[‘s] weightlifting. “In the men[‘s], it’s very difficult, and we have a lot but they are not in the same classes as those two.”
He reiterated that the seminar was to plan for the 2018 and 2020 Olympics and map out the next few years of Oceania weightlifting.
“We need to set up more international training camps, we need to set up international events and focus on those lifters who have a chance for the games, and identify athletes that have chances to make the Olympics in Tokyo,” he said. “We are also setting up [a development] programme for young kids throughout schools so that the quantity will give us the quality in the end.”
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